News 13.12.2013Evaluation of higher education funding in LatviaThe World Bank and Latvia's government have agreed to evaluate the existing higher education funding system and give recommendations for its further development. CHE managing director Prof. Dr. Frank Ziegele has been assigned responsibility for the project's content as senior advisor. He was, among others, invited to Riga for the signing of the contract between Latvia’s government and the World Bank in December 2013

News 30.10.2013Potential of the digitalisation of academic teaching remains largely untappedGerman HEIs are still not making the most of the opportunities of online learning. This is the result of a study carried out by the CHE – Centre for Higher Education. “MOOCs” or Massive Open Online Courses, which are currently causing a stir in the US and worldwide, could kick-start a far-reaching changes on higher education. In order to be able to exploit the potential identified in the CHE study, HEIs must adopt online learning as a strategic task and law-makers must remove existing barriers. A conference co-organised by the CHE and Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft on 27 November 2013 in Berlin has provided an opportunity to discuss the results of the study and examples from practice with experts.

News 22.10.2013New study on the understanding of leadership rectors and presidents prefer to involve higher education institutions (HEI) members rather than adopt an authoritarian style of governanceUniversity presidents and rectors characterise their institutions as especially conflictive organisations: the autonomy of HEI members, indispensable for good scientific work, must be maintained and at the same time the ability to pursue a strategy must be guaranteed in the interest of the entire organisation. An explorative study by the CHE Centre for Higher Education shows that, for leaders close communication and the integration of HEI members (rather than authoritative top-to-bottom “ruling”) is a decisive factor in this. HEI leaders were interviewed about their understanding of leadership the key areas of university management and the challenges from outside

News 16.10.2013Comprehensive Bundesstudienförderung (federal funding of studies) instead of small-scale BAFöG reformA grand coalition is becoming increasingly likely. All parties involved are aiming to reform the BAföG (German Federal Law on Training and Education Promotion) system. For the CHE Centre for Higher Education Development, small, gradual changes are insufficient. According to the CHE, the answer is a Bundesstudienförderung (federal funding of studies) model, which would bring the individual instruments of the funding of studies together under one roof

News 15.10.2013Practical orientation in teacher training. The more the better?!Students who want to become teachers require more practical relevance in their studies. The number of possibilities of gaining work experiences has increased but still they are not harmonised among states or HEIs and their impact has yet to be evaluated. This is the result of a new publication Practical orientation in teacher training. The more the better?! It calls (amongst others) for better support by mentors.

News 18.09.2013Jörg Dräger: “Graduate fees to fund higher education institutions are just and effective"No German state will be imposing general tuition fees as of 2014. The university funding issue remains on the table, however, as the discussions in Baden-Wuerttemberg show. Jörg Dräger is therefore advocating graduate fees, a model which is already working successfully in Australia.

News 30.08.2013Family at University club develops charter for family-friendly HEIsMember HEIs of the Family at University best-practice club have been calling for family-friendly conditions in German higher education for more than five years. Club members have shaped special profiles for themselves over the years and now want to use this experience to develop a charter on the subject of the “compatibility of studies, work and academic life with family responsibilities”. The CHE – Centre for Higher Education will support the project and monitor the process. The Robert Bosch Stiftung will fund the development of the charter

News 20.08.2013The chances, risks and consequences of digital education offers for Germany’s higher education systemMassive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs for short, are currently on everyone’s lips, but MOOCs are only one example of how to use digital teaching components as teaching material, social media and adapting testing software can benefit HEIs in different ways. The CHE and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft are staging a conference on 27 November 2013 to discuss the chances, risks and consequences of these kinds of educational offers.

News 02.07.2013CHE runs quality network for dual study programmes – to start in autumn 2013The Association for the Promotion of Science and Humanities in Germany has asked the CHE to run a quality network of German HEIs on the subject of dual study programmes. All network participants will jointly develop recommendations for the further development of dual study programmes and for future-orientated co-operations between the field of vocational training and the academic world. This will result in a practice-based manual for study programmes that will be presented at a conference in the summer of 2015. The quality network will be launched in the autumn of 2013 when ten member-HEIs selected by an expert jury will meet for the first time.

News 11.06.2013Student loans in Germany: "All that glitters is not gold"No student loan in sight, the Bafög loan has been used up, a part-time job is impossible alongside studies and parental support has reached its limit. Faced with this situation, 50,000 students per year are concluding new student loan contracts in order to be able to finish their studies despite financial difficulties.
The latest CHE student loan test 2013 reveals that a total of 850 million euros are available for student loans in Germany. The test also tells students what they need to be aware of before signing a student loan contract.

News 07.06.2013Over 500 Institutions Registered. Registration Remains OpenThe first U-Multirank edition in 2014 will cover a minimum of 500 higher education institutions from around the world. We are pleased to announce that we have reached this goal and will continue to accept registration forms, so higher education institutions interested in participating can still register their interest now

News 06.05.2013CHE UniversityRanking: focus on engineering, linguistics, educational science and psychologyIn the latest CHE UniversityRanking, students assess their study conditions in the subjects of engineering, linguistics, education science and psychology. Comprehensive information on more than 30 subjects analysed is available for those interested in studying. There is also information on research funds or the percentage of graduates who complete their programme within the prescribed study period. The new DIE ZEIT Study Guide 2013/2014 is published on 7 May 2013 and includes the latest findings and tips on studying

News 10.04.2013“Create more study places in Master programmes“The demand for study places on Master programmes will increase dramatically over the coming years. In contrast to the number of Master study places so far planned by the Higher Education Pact, an estimated 36,000 Bachelor graduates could may have to postpone starting a Master programme in the peak year of 2016 alone if the highest of three possible calculation scenarios in the study came true. The CHE model calculation shows the corridor of the expected potential demand for places if 50, 69.4 and 85 per cent of Bachelor graduates continue onto a Master programme. Even the cautious estimate that only one in two Bachelor students will continue onto a Master programme indicates that a significantly higher demand is to be expected compared to the number of Master places financed up until now. “It is a fact that the Higher Education Pact 2020 does not include a set of tools that can stimulate the necessary expansion of study places in Master programmes,” said Prof. Dr. Frank Ziegele, managing director of the CHE – Centre for Higher Education

News 12.03.2013”Diversity in excellence 2012” published: special analysis shows top performances by German higher education institutions in a wide range of areasThe CHE analysed the group of mathematical/natural science subjects from the 2012 UniversityRanking on the basis of research strength, practice orientation, internationality and focus on students. “There are many ways higher education institutions can produce excellent performances, said Prof. Dr. Frank Ziegele, managing director of the CHE. “We wish to make this diversity transparent in four dimensions and in doing so show that HEI performances cannot be determined in a simplified way using one-dimensional measurements.” Prof. Dr. Ziegele added: “Profile shaping isn’t only aimed at research. There are many possible profiles that are not better or worse than any other.”

News 13.02.2013Information on the International Deans’ Course Africa 2013/14The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) – Section for Joint Higher Education Management
Programmes (DIES) and the Regional Office in Nairobi – and the University of Applied Sciences
Osnabrück (FHOs), the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), the Centre for Higher Education
Development (CHE) in cooperation with the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (AvH) and partner
universities in Africa are jointly organising the International Deans’ Course for Africa. This intensive
training course is part of the DIES programme (Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies)
which has been jointly coordinated by DAAD and HRK since 2001

News 30.01.2013New international university ranking launched in DublinA new university ranking, set up with funding from the European Union, is being publicly launched under the Irish EU Presidency in Dublin today (30 January).
The conference launching the ranking will be opened by the Irish Minister for Education and Skills, Ruairi Quinn. He said: "As higher education becomes ever more crucial to Europe’s social, cultural and economic well-being, the need for quality and diversity in our higher education systems grows greater. The Irish Presidency is strongly committed to helping support the roll-out of this next phase of U-Multirank. I urge higher education institutions to seize this opportunity to participate in building a ranking system which will shine a light on the many positive aspects of higher education activity across Europe for the benefit of students, institutional leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders.”

News 16.01.2013Croatian government introduces target agreements with higher education institutionsThe Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports has concluded target agreements with higher education institutions for the first time. The process was developed as part of a World Bank project in which CHE managing director Prof. Dr. Frank Ziegele acted as consultant. At the concluding workshop, all those involved described their experiences with the instrument as extremely positive and said it had improved relations between the state and universities